The present invention relates to a diverter assembly for use with a vibratory conveyor having a product transporting bed, and more specifically to a diverter assembly which can be selectively adjusted to divert products moving along the product transporting bed into various courses of travel.
Excited frame vibratory conveying devices are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,535, which is incorporated by reference herein shows a typical excited frame conveying apparatus. As best seen in FIG. 1, which shows a prior art device, an apparatus such as this includes a vibratory drive mounted on an elongated frame, and which rests on a floor or other supporting structure. Extending upwardly from the frame, and inclined in the direction of the intake, or infeed end of the conveyor are a plurality of leaf springs. An elongated conveyor or product transporting bed is mounted on the distal ends of each of the leaf spring, and is supported by them in a generally parallel relationship relative to the frame, and in a substantially overall horizontal orientation. Due to the resiliency of the respective leaf springs, the product conveying bed is capable of moving relative to this frame in response to a force supplied to the bed by the vibratory drive. During the operation of the apparatus, the vibratory drive produces an oscillating vibratory force which is generated by counter rotating eccentric weights which are subcomponents of the vibratory drive. Because the vibratory drive is mounted on the frame, it imparts vibratory motion to the frame, which is then transferred through the leaf springs to the conveyor bed. As a result, the bed vibrates at substantially the same frequency as the drive and frame.
In operation, if the conveyor bed is displaced from its xe2x80x9cat restxe2x80x9d position and then allowed to oscillate freely, it will oscillate at its natural or xe2x80x9charmonic frequencyxe2x80x9d. This natural frequency of the bed is dependent upon the combined spring constant, the number of springs supporting the bed, as well as the mass of the bed.
As compared with other types of vibratory conveyors, as a general matter, less vibrational and force is transferred to the floor or other supporting structure by an excited frame conveyor design because of its relatively lightweight, and small vibrational amplitude of the frame, as compared to the vibrational amplitude of the product conveying bed. The low level of vibrational force transferred to the surrounding structure is a chief advantage of the excited frame vibratory conveyor as seen in FIG. 1.
While vibratory conveyors have gained increasing acceptance, and are widely used in many industry segments, operators of such devices have sought means to make such conveyors as versatile as possible. For example, operators want this style of conveyor to be capable of handling a wide array of products at different conveying speeds. Still further, operators of such devices often want to control both the frequency of the vibration, and the amplitude of vibration of the bed, in order to control the conveying speed of the product and to minimize damage to fragile products. Still further, operators may wish to operate this conveyor in combination with other sorting devices, or otherwise integrate it with other processing machinery to widen the range of applications for which these same conveyors may find usefulness.
A diverter assembly for use with a vibratory conveyor as discussed above, is the subject matter of the present application.